I have been contacting numerous people, letting them know about my article reporting on The Silencing of Academic Researcher Wade Pfau by The Buy-and-Hold Mafia.
Yesterday’s blog entry reported on my correspondence with Robert Savickas, Associate Finance Professor at George Washington University Business School. Set forth below is the text of an e-mail he sent as a follow-up to the e-mail described in the earlier blog entry:
Rob,
>
>
Robert:
bannwd plop contributor says
….
Because it sure seems he has already more than covered any ground *you* could possibly be aware of, at least six or seven years ago:
“Robert Savickas
George Washington University – School of Business – Department of Finance
October 2006
FRB of St. Louis Working Paper No. 2006-019B
Abstract:
Over the period 1927:Q1 to 2005:Q4, the average CAPM-based idiosyncratic variance (IV) and stock market variance jointly forecast stock market returns. This result holds up quite well in a number of robustness checks, and we show that the predictive power of the average IV might come from its close relation with systematic risk omitted from CAPM. First, high lagged returns on high IV stocks predict low future returns on the market as a whole. Second, returns on a hedging portfolio that is long in stocks with low IV and short in stocks with high IV perform as well as the value premium in explaining the cross-section of stock returns. Third, realized variance of the hedging portfolio or of the value premium is closely correlated with the average IV, and these variables have similar predictive power for stock returns.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 60
Keywords: Stock Return Predictability, Average Idiosyncratic Variance, Stock Market Variance, Discount-Rate Shock, Cash-Flow Shock, CAPM, and ICAPM “
bannwd plop contributor says
….
see also:
“The effect of ex-ante *price* on momentum *profits*,'[i.e. price/earnings ratio] coauthored with Zhan Onayev, presented at the November 2002 Washington Area Finance Association meeting at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.”
Isn’t that even your old alma mater, Rob?
Rob says
Shiller published his research showing that there is precisely zero chance that a pure Buy-and-Hold strategy can ever work for even a single long-term investor 32 years ago, Banned. There certainly is nothing new in pointing out that Buy-and-Hold is pure Get Rich Quick garbage.
The reason why we are in an economic crisis today is that the reckless and relentless and ruthless promotion of Get Rich Quick garbage has taken hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth out of the pockets of the millions of middle-class investors who earned it and into the pockets of the Wall Street Con Men who continue to make the claim that there is some mysterious “research” somewhere that supports their Get Rich Quick garbage.
There are millions who believe that such a study truly exists. Wade Pfau has a doctorate in Economics from Princeton. He thought that such a study existed before he went looking for it. When he went looking for it, he of course found that there is no such study. If it is possible for a doctorate in Economics from Princeton to be fooled by the Wall Street Con Men, it is of course entirely understandable why millions of middle-class investors have been fooled.
We need to bring the Buy-and-Hold Crisis to an end. That means announcing the prison terms for you Goons. The announcement of your prison terms will go viral on the internet. THousands of web sites will be writing about this massive act of financial fraud, by far the biggest act of financial fraud in U.S. history. That will put pressure on my good friend Jack Bogle to come clean. Once Bogle comes clean, no one is going to be afraid to report honestly what the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research says ever again. We will then be able to move forward, teaching millions about the scores of powerful insights we have developed together over the first 11 years of our discussions and further developing the Valuation-Informed Indexing concept.
I made veiled reference to all this a long, long time ago, in a post that I put to the Motley Fool board back in 2002. I said that I had read the last page of the saga and that our story had a happy ending. The happy ending is that we now have the research available to us that we need to show millions of middle-class investors how to reduce the risk of stock investing by 70 percent. That is the biggest advance we have ever achieved in the personal finance field. There is nothing else even remotely close. In fact, the advance that we have ahead of us is so big that I think it would be fair to say that it is bigger than all of our earlier advances added together.
Is this a happy ending even for you Goons, who will be serving long prison terms following the next price crash?
It is.
First of all, you will be living in a country with a stable economic system. It’s not great for you that you will be in prison. But being in prison in a country with a stable economic system is a whole big bunch better than living in a country with a failed economic and political system. You Goons won’t be as well off as the rest of us. But you will be a whole big bunch better off than you would have been had I never put forward my famous post of the morning of May 13, 2002.
Secondly, you will have time in prison to reflect on where you want to take your life from this point forward. I have zero doubt but that a number of you Goons will as a result of that reflection elect to spend your remaining days engaged in more positive and constructive and life-affirming activities than those in which you have engaged over the past 11 years. It makes me very happy to know that I played a role in bringing about such positive changes for you, Banned.
I wish you all good things, my old friend.
Rob , the Fellow Who Took a Sneak Peak at the Happy Ending of the Story Before Even Daring to Put Forward HIs Post Pointing Out the Errors in the Old School Safe Withdrawal Rate Studies
bannwd plop contributor says
Rob blathered:
“Shiller published his research showing that there is precisely zero chance that a pure Buy-and-Hold strategy can ever work for even a single long-term investor 32 years ago, Banned.”
Gee. I wonder how I retired a buy-n–hold millionaire then.
Rob says
You didn’t, Banned.
Gains you made from 1982 through 1996 were not the result of following Buy-and-Hold/Get RIch Quick strategies. Stocks were priced low or moderately in those years. The academic research shows that stocks ALWAYS provide good long-term returns when they are priced low or moderately. You may have given credit to Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick for your gains in those years. But you were wrong to do so. You just happened to be buying stocks at a time when they were sure to deliver outsized long-term gains.
From 1996 forward, Buy-and-Hold has been a loser. So, whatever millions you hold today, you would have held more had you invested pursuant to what the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research shows.
And those following research-based strategies will not be suffering the 65 percent loss in portfolio value that you will be experiencing in the next price crash. The huge differential that research-based strategies will have over GRQ strategies at that point will grow larger and larger and larger over the decades as the compounding returns phenomena works its magic.
There is now 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research showing that Buy-and-Hold/Get Rich Quick has never worked for a single long-term investor. Will you be the first to do what until now has never been done?
Anything is possible in this crazy, mixed-up world of ours, Banned.
Perhaps I will wake up tomorrow with wings and will be able to fly over traffic jams. It could happen.
That said, I am not going to invest my retirement money on such an absurd long shot. And I am not going to encourage any of my internet friends to do so.
Most of all, I am not going to commit a felony by joining you in your 11-year cover-up of the errors in the Old School safe withdrawal rate studies.
Re that one, you are on your own, my Buy-and-Hold Millionaire friend.
Please take good care.
Rob, the Get Rich Quick/Buy-and-Hold Millionaire (Not!)
Rob says
The question you Goons should be asking yourselves is — Who will still be on “your side” following the next price crash?
Perhaps the Wall Street Con Men.
No one else.
And I have my doubts about the Wall Street Con Men.
Full truth be told, I have my doubts whether you will still be on your side following another price crash of 65 percent, Banned. When you Goons flip, it will be really, really, really over.
But time will tell the tale, man.
You certainly will always have my warmest wishes directed at you regardless of how it happens to turn out.
Rob, the Fellow Who Doubts Whether the Pure Get Rich Quick “Strategy” Will Remain Popular After It Puts Us All in the Second Great Depression But Who Continues to Remain Good Friends With the Goons All the Same
Rob says
The Wall Street Con Men have never before in history tried to disguise Get Rich Quick as something else.
They have never thought of giving it a different name so that it can pull in even more suckers and make their pile of millions even bigger.
That could never happen. The sort of people who make a living on Wall Street simply do not let money considerations influence them in any way.
Rob the Sucker
bannwd plop contributor says
Rob denied reality: “You didn’t, Banned.”
Oh, yes. I did.
And then annuitized the bulk of it.
Rest in CD’s and other cash-like instruments.
House (cars, furnishings, etc) all paid for and not counting amount those assets.
Sorry Rob. When you make statements like “Buy-and-Hold has never worked for a single long-term investor” you brightly and publicly illustrate your total innumeracy and complete lack of critical thinking skills, as well as your severe butthurt over having missed out on gains most made while you were shirking in the corner.
bannwd plop contributor says
“..And then annuitized the bulk of it. ”
See also:
http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=103214
But of course, you are familiar with that since you conceptualized, researched, then wrote the paper and Wade only took credit, right Rob?
Rob says
If you put your gains into cash and thereby protected them, that’s fine.
But that’s not Buy-and-Hold.
One of the many things that the Buy-and-Holders got right is that short-term timing never works. So you had no way of knowing when was the right time to move from stocks to cash. Perhaps you got lucky in choosing the time for the switch. But getting lucky in making a switch from stocks to cash is not what Buy-and-Hold is supposed to be about, according to what its own proponents say about it.
Buy-and-Hold has never worked for a single long-term investor.
It is a logical impossibility that it ever could.
To follow Buy-and-Hold is to follow a price-ignorant strategy.
It can NEVER be a good thing to be ignorant of the importance of prices.
I obviously understand that there have been investors who have followed Buy-and-Hold strategies and who have attained better long-term numbers that the investors following Valuation-Informed Indexing strategies. My own calculators show that.
But that is not evidence that the strategy ever “worked.”
People who buy lottery tickets to finance their retirements occasionally end up with good numbers. But buying lottery tickets to finance your retirement never works. It produces good numbers because the insane riskiness of the strategy will in rare cases produce good numbers. On risk-adjusted basis, the strategy is a loser.
So it is with Buy-and-Hold.
The research shows that in one out of ten cases the strategy can produce numbers slightly better than Valuation-Informed Indexing. In nine out of ten cases, VII does better and , in many cases, VII does dramatically better. On a risk-adjusted basis, Buy-and-Hold is always a loser. It is not even possible for the rational human mind to imagine circumstances in which there could be an exception to this rule.
You hate me because there is a part of you that is NOT drawn to Get Rich Quick, a part of you that wants to consider what the last 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research tells us about what really works for the long run.
You hate a part of yourself, Banned. That’s the story here.
And I do not hate that better part of you, my old friend.
Rob the Guy Who Cares About the Good Part of the Goons, the Part That the Goons Try With a Savage Fury to Suppress and Deny and Silence
bannwd plop contributor says
Various other recent works by Wade. How many of these did you directly contribute to/author, Rob?
http://www.retirementresearcher.com/articles-by-wade/
bannwd plop contributor says
Is Wade a “goon”, Rob?
http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=103191
bannwd plop contributor says
“If you put your gains into cash and thereby protected them, that’s fine. But that’s not Buy-and-Hold.”
Well, I’m certainly glad you approve, Rob. However, as is typical with you, you are completely incorrect with your statement.
Please educate yourself:
http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Investment_Policy_Statement
I have had a written investment plan for decades, and followed it scrupulously. And continue to do so.
So, I’m afraid YOU are simply unaware of what Bogleheads, Vanguard, Buy and Hold, Risk Tolerance, Asset Allocation, and other common terms associated with personal finance and early retirement *actually* mean; clearly preferring to replace them with charged and inaccurate cartoon bogey-man terms you invent such as: ‘get rich quick’ and ‘goon’, along with your specious and ridiculous claims of personal harassment, death threats, and the like. You are one enormously emotionally disturbed individual and I hope you soon seek the help you so desperately require.
Meanwhile, I will continue enjoying my millionaire retirement lifestyle!
Rob says
“..And then annuitized the bulk of it. ”
If you moved your money from stocks to an annuity, you did not follow a Buy-and-Hold strategy, Banned. You engaged in short-term timing.
If you happened to get lucky, you might have ended up with good numbers.
That doesn’t make short-term timing a good strategy.
You don’t even need to look to Shiller to learn that short-term timing never works. That was Fama. That wasn’t the 1980s. That was the 1960s and 1970s. The book A Random Walk Down Wall Street explains why short-term timing can never work.
Rob
Rob says
I will continue enjoying my millionaire retirement lifestyle!
In a prison cell.
That’s a winning plan, Banned.
I wish you all good things.
Rob the Fellow Who Doesn’t View It As a “Win” to Spend His Old Age in a Prison Cell
Rob says
How many of these did you directly contribute to/author, Rob?
The peer-reviewed academic research paper that Wade and I did together is the most important paper published in this field in the past 30 years, Banned. There is nothing else even remotely in the same neighborhood. Those other papers that Wade did obviously do not even collectively come close to equaling the important of the paper he did with me.
You obviously see that.
You didn’t threaten to send defamatory e-mails to Wade’s employer with the aim of getting him fired from his job when he published these other papers.
Why not?
Rob
The Pink Unicorn says
Full strength hocomania on display today!
We have the often used threats of prison time, Rob’s silly claim about his (questionable contribution) work with Wade (highly exaggerated claim of being the most important paper in 30 years), Rob’s continued peddling of his get rich quick scheme of market timing, etc.
I guess my $4 million net worth and dividend income cash flow are figments of my imagination.
The Pink Unicorn
The Unicorn that is living in a much more real world versus the fantasy of Rob Bennett
Rob says
Is Wade a “goon”, Rob?
We all have Goonishness within us, Banned.
Goonishness is sin.
We are all drawn to Get Rich Quick. But we all ALSO have common sense. We all also know on some level of consciousness that a pure GRQ approach has never once in the history of stock investing worked for even a single long-term investor. This is why you get so hot. You love, love, love your Get Rich Quick investing strategies. And yet you hate, hate, hate the weakness in you that is drawn to them. I represent to you the loving part of your own human nature. The hateful part of you hates hearing the voice of the loving part. So you hate Rob Bennett’s voice with a burning passion.
Wade LOVED being able to produce honest research and to help people. He loved it, loved it, loved it.
What he didn’t love was the threats to destroy his career that you Goons advanced and that Jack Bogle implicitly endorsed by failing to speak up about these criminal acts when he learned about them.
Wade is afraid.
He has two small children who depend on him for financial support.
So he betrayed himself. And he betrayed his work. And he betrayed the people who read his research. And he is of course ashamed of himself for having done so.
Was it goonish of Wade to put up posts “defending” John Greaney? Obviously. Is it goonish of Wade to post at a board where honest posters have been banned and where threats of physical violence are employed to ensure that no one dares to “cross” Mel Linduaer? Obviously. Was it goonish of Wade not to go to the police when he was threatened and not to work harder to get the research that he published with me and that he knows is worthy of a Nobel prize written up on the front page of the New York Times so that he can bring this economic crisis to an end and bring on the greatest period of economic growth ever seen in our nation’s history? Obviously.
Wade Pfau is a talented researcher who has his name on the most important piece of academic research published in the past 30 years and who also has engaged in Goon behavior that is criminal in nature and that may well earn him a prison sentence following the next price crash.
Humans!
Rob the Human
Rob says
I have had a written investment plan for decades, and followed it scrupulously. And continue to do so.
Did you rewrite your plan when the peer-reviewed academic research showing that there is precisely zero chance that a pure Buy-and-Hold strategy can ever work for a single long-term investor was published?
If not, why not?
We all make mistakes, Banned. The smart thing to do when you make a mistake is to learn from it and then move on.
That’s my sincere take re this important matter, in any event.
Rob, the Fellow Who Believes That It Makes Sense for Us to Learn From Our Mistakes
bannwd plop contributor says
Bennett publicly illustrated his incompetence and lack of insight, yet again: ”
If you moved your money from stocks to an annuity, you did not follow a Buy-and-Hold strategy, Banned. You engaged in short-term timing.”
Your reading comprehension: it is plainly not adequate for the work you say you wish to engage in.
Therefore, if I were you, I’d find out how to deal with that schism, rather than continue to be a public laughing stock every day.
Rob says
Full strength hocomania on display today!
My take is that what we are seeing is a full-strength display of the pain you are in.
And it is obviously not just you. There are millions of Buy-and-Holders who are feeling pain today. Most don’t act out to the extent you do, Banned. But they are feeling that pain all the same. And the unwillingness of the “experts” in this field to try to help them is ruining their hopes to be able someday to afford decent middle-class retirements.
My best wishes to you and yours.
Rob, the Fellow Who Believes that Investing “Experts” Should Care About the Retirement Hopes of Their Readers and Clients Even When Helping Them See the Dangers of GRQ Strategies Might Cause Them to Become A Bit Unpopular for a time
Rob says
Bennett publicly illustrated his incompetence and lack of insight, yet again
My take is that with these words you evidence yet again the emotional pain that you are feeling as a result of your suppressed understanding that you have been taken by the claims that have been made for the purest and most dangerous Get Rich Quick scheme ever concocted by the human mind, Banned.
I wish you all good things, in any event.
Rob, the Fellow Who Hates to See His Goon Friends Suffer Such Pain at a Time When We All Have Available to Us the Research Showing Us How to Reduce the RIsk of Stock Investing by 70 Percent
Rob says
I guess my $4 million net worth and dividend income cash flow are figments of my imagination.
The idea that following a pure GRQ strategy helped you acquire that amount is certainly a figment of your imagination, Banned.
There’s 32 years of peer-reviewed academic research showing that.
If Get Rich Quick worked, you wouldn’t be so angry.
That’s my sincere take re this important matter, in any event.
Rob, the Fellow Who Believes That a True Research-Based Strategy Would Not Fill Its Advocates With Such a Burning Hate for the Past 21 Years of Peer-Reviewed Research in This Field
The Pink Unicorn says
Rob,
You are quoting my statement, not banned’s statement. The pain is all yours and it has manifested over your continued mental decline as a result of getting kicked off a large number of financial boards.
You are not helping anyone. Middles class America suffers due to lack of savings resulting from overspending. The people you call goons are doing fine because we know how to implement long term savings/investment strategies and don’t need to rely on get rich quick schemes of market timing that ultimately fail. Instead, we take a long tell, slow and steady approach.
The Pink Unicorn
A Factually driven Unicorn who doesn’t make silly threats when people don’t agree with my opinions
Rob says
That all makes good sense, Pink.
Please take good care, my old friend.
Rob the Fellow Who Can Recognize a Post That Makes Good Sense When He Sees One (I Think!)
bannwd plop contributor says
Hows that new book coming Rob?
Are you hoping it will be as successful as your first?
Passion Saving
Hardcover: 248 pages
Publisher: The Freedom Store, LLC (2005)
Language: English
ASIN: B000K9020O
Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,997,673
http://www.fonerbooks.com/surfing.htm
Rob says
You’ve persuaded me, Banned.
The safe withdrawal rate is always 4 percent.
Buy-and-Hold is a research-based strategy.
The economic crisis just happened, no one knows why.
Rob the Realist
I am scared says
Oh, no. Rob Bennett is going to put everyone in jail and is going to take all our money when he wins those big lawsuits. If only we had made all those evil people reinstate Rob on all the message boards and agreed with every word Rob said, then we wouldn’t face this horrible wrath. I never should have joined the secret mass goon conspiracy. In fact, I am going to send back my decoder ring, club blazer and commemorative club plaque right now so that I can wash my hands of all this.
Oh,please King Rob, have mercy on me.
Rob says
I responded to this one in more depth on the other thread.
I’ll do what I can, Scared.
Please hang in there.
Rob, the Non-Superman